Monrovia, Liberia - The Liberia Macroeconomic Policy Analysis Center (LIMPAC) of the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP) On Tuesday October 31, 2017 contributed LD 500,000.00 (Five Hundred Thousand Liberian Dollars) as support to providing tuition aid/scholarships to about seventeen thousand students of the University of Liberia who feared being dropped out for the First Semester of Academic Year 2017/2018.

“As Minister of Finance and Development Planning, there is no way you can run the office without mentioning education. You need education to do everything and it was based on the Minister’s desire and determination for education at the University of Liberia and country at large that he asked LIMPAC to ensure that the research-based section of the Ministry provide the requisite support to the students’ tuition aid fund raising exercise ’’, said Mr. Del Francis Wreh while presenting the check on behalf of Finance and Development Planning Minister Hon. Boima S. Kamara.

The Executive Director of LIMPAC Mr. Del Francis Wreh, cautioned the leadership of ULSU, SUP and the general student populace to remain constructively engaged with University’s leadership and stakeholders within educational sector as they pursue their academic studies.

Mr. Wreh explained that Minister Kamara’s intervention was based on a request made by the leadership of the University of Liberia Student Union (ULSU) to the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning. Director Wreh said Minister Kamara who is also Chairperson of the Board of Management of LIMPAC saw it prudent to support the scholarship fundraiser, in line with LIMPAC’s strategic plan to support the human development and capacity building needs of Liberia, especially during this current period of economic challenges for students and their parents or sponsors.Additionally, he said “Minister Kamara also felt the need to support the students because he (Kamara) was once in similar position of looking up for scholarship to pursue education during his days as a student of the UL and saw his giving back as a moral obligation to society”’.

Mr. Wreh said, when ULSU made the request for over 17,000 needed students, Minister Kamara saw the need to help, because every sector of the economy needs to be productive, and supporting the students at this initial stage of their professional development makes sense for human capacity development and he was glad that the government can provide further help in this direction.

Mr. Wreh also commended student Martin Kollie of the Press and Propaganda Bureau of the Student Unification Party (SUP) and entire leadership of SUP for being instruct mental in advocating for support to ULSU Scholarship and Financial Aid Program to the benefit of his colleagues and students.

For his part, Jerome Danquah Acting President of SUP lauded Minister Kamara for what he termed as ‘great’ help in restoring the hopes of seventeen thousand students. He said to move this country forward our concentration should be around education and education is the fundamental right for every citizen’s.

‘’ There is no country that make significant progress in the absent of education assured the minister that monies will be used for the intended purpose, so therefore Government need to invest in education in order for the nation to be develop’’ says Mr. Danquiah

LIMPAC’s Executive Director further emphasized the Ministry’s support to the country’s educational sector through the national budget and assured that as LIMPAC is able generate more support including out of budget support it would expand the interventions into more institutions to support human capacity development across the country.